Wave Caster
by DevilFish
Summary: The story of the life of a Murloc Tiderunner, Kalas, who becomes the first Murloc Wavecaster and leader of his clan. Rated PG-13, well, because it's war. War is pretty much a PG-13 to R-rated thing, or at least it should be.


Wave Caster

By DevilFish

Note: Devilfish doesn't own Warcraft; it's a Blizzard trademark. Devilfish is just borrowing it. Chapter One/Introduction: The Raid 

Under a half moon, and a sky filled with stars no-one on Earth will ever see, the Murloc raiding party crept through the murk of the Mulgore River delta, submerged but for their large eyes. Silently they waded through brackish, cloudy water, undetected by anything but a few leeches that chewed hopelessly at their tough scales. From channel to channel, in between the clusters of brown and green swamp plants, they snuck closer and closer to their objective: the Orcish pig farms that watered their animals from the river Mulgore. Like any predators, Murlocs love the easy prey of livestock. The sea is full of fish, but they are harder to catch, and much smaller. Populations always grow to the limit of their food supplies, and that means there will be hunger. The fish-men were famished, grim, and determined.

The leader was a large and dark Murloc hunter-warrior of the Nightcrawler caste. He spoke to his followers in a squawking, watery hiss.

"_Stay close, stay quiet, we near them. I taste the beasts upon the water. Stay silent, silent, and follow…" _Closer in they pulled their formations, appearing as a little army of ripples flowing through the wetlands. They were fifteen in all: the great black Nightcrawler, Tepalsish, his apprentice Eta'cha, four orange huntsmen carrying their nets, and nine of the Tiderunners, the small but tough yellow hunter-warriors that made up the bulk of Murloc raiding parties.

Kalas was the smallest and weakest of the fish-men. He alone had fear in his eyes and butterflies in his empty stomach, and he moved with the nervous jerkiness of a newly initiated Tiderunner carrying his knife and shield into battle for the first time. He had adventured onto land many times before; Murlocs were amphibious by the age of a few months. As a youngling, he and others of his generation would crawl the shores and shoals off the coast of Kalimdor to pull mussels from the rocks and rob the nests of gulls. He had even seen the more dangerous denizens of the land up close, the Tauren and Quillboars and Centaurs who came to drink from the rivers they explored. He had always come back alive and well before…

"_It is no different,"_ he thought, trying to reassure himself. But it was, of course. He had never before been carrying deadly weapons, and never before had his face borne the aggressive red stripes of a Tiderunner. He had not fought anything fiercer than a marsh-snake, and never seen true violence. He was well trained in the use of his knife and shield, and the bamboo spears on his back, but his heart was completely unprepared, and his mind knew it. He heard a groaning in the bushes and jerked around to face whatever it might be, splashing loudly.

"_Kalas, you trying to imitate a crab mating dance? Stop twitching like that! You'll have us all at the end of Troll spears!"_ It was Eta'cha, the smaller Nightcrawler. She was one of his siblings, as were all of his generation. All of Tepalsish's generation were their parents. In a mass egg-laying spree, there is no way to keep precise track of lineage— there are no nuclear families, and it truly does take a village to raise a child. Since the Murlocs operated on a mating-season system, each year's generation was within one week of each other in age and were all considered siblings.

_"Sister,"_ he addressed her. _"Were you not afraid the first time you raided? Did you forget what it's like so fast? This is only your third!"_ As a Nightcrawler she had priority in training, and had become a full-fledged member of the clan sooner than he. It was a rule to only bring one new warrior on a raid, because in a world without small family groups it was sink or swim-- many sank. One rookie failure could doom a whole raiding party in the wrong circumstances.

           Eta'cha bubbled in both frustration and understanding at Kalas. "Yes, I remember being afraid, and I am afraid now. But I didn't splash every time I heard a noise, and neither shall you!"

Kalas tried to steady himself. They came to a large open pool, and Tepalsish gave the order for all to dive and stay hidden underwater. He and Eta'cha went out to scout. To Kalas, under the water, they shimmered as they crawled the shore, invisible as clumps of swamp grass when they held still. Then they moved out of sight, and for a long time he sat there in the gloom, the odd cocktail of salt and fresh water making his gills itch. He though about what his fate might be. He had a good enough general idea—he had seen raiders come back with huge gashes from Centaur axes, or whole limbs crushed off by Tauren. Often they were crippled and deformed for life. Sometimes they died.

Finally, the Nightcrawlers returned to the water's edge and beckoned the rest of the raiding party to surface.

_"We have found our place to strike. The guards walk the whole farm, and if we are fast we may get to one of the pens between their rounds and take food without fighting."_ Kalas felt a moment of relief; perhaps he would not die after all. They emerged from the water and followed the Nightcrawlers into the orcish farmlands. They approached the nearest pigpen, stopping at the end of cover to wait for the guards. The night breeze blew the slime on Kalas's scales and chilled him, stiffening his cold-blooded muscles. The guards patrolled past them, oblivious. Kalas watched the huge, muscle bound Orcs, and tall Trolls with wild hair and great fangs, and he listened to their heavy breathing and loud footfall over the chirping of swamp creatures. He had never seen creatures such as these before. The Murlocs waited for the guards to move further away, and Kalas grew colder still. When Tepalsish gave them the signal to move, he had to strain to walk. He forced himself and moved clumsily along the swampy earth, inevitably falling behind the others.  He reached the wooden pigsty last, as the hunters readied their nets and Tepalsish pried the gate open with his large knife.

The pigs looked up from their sleep, alarmed by the unfamiliar smell of the Murlocs. Three of the huntsmen patiently walked towards the animals, trying not to panic them. But one, a younger huntsman, let his yearning for the pigs' raw flesh and his aggressive instincts get the better of him. Before Tepalsish could stop him, he leapt at the fattest sow, throwing his net over it and hauling it to the ground. Then, Kalas's heart stopped and his blood ran colder than any wind could make it. The pig had squealed in terror and pain, and set off a cacophony of panicked, trapped animals in the sty. The guards would have had to be deaf not to hear it. _"FOOL!"_ came Tepalsish's thunderous watery snarl, and at the same moment the sound of dry, barking Orcish and Trollish voices could be heard along with heavy footsteps growing rapidly closer.

The other three hunters netted pigs quickly as Tepalsish ordered a retreat, and the fifteen clambered back towards the delta as fast as webbed feet could carry them, roughly dragging the ensnared pigs behind. Kalas was in shock. He followed the others without thinking, and the world became a blur. It seemed for a moment that the Murlocs would be safe, as they reached the edge of the marshland. The Tiderunners all joined in to help pull at the nets, trying to drag the pigs through the thick mud. Kalas again felt a moment of hope, as he turned and saw the guards still far behind them. His fear ebbed a little and he helped to pull one of the struggling pigs into the swamp.

But, luck was not on their side. Completely taking them by surprise, two snarling orcs burst from the undergrowth. Kalas had not been entirely wrong to fear the noise in the marsh-- it seemed two of the brutish land creatures had snuck off into the undergrowth for a dalliance-- and apparently carried their weapons with them-- typically Orcish! On their way back to camp, the couple had heard the commotion and come running, and now were straight in the path of the Murlocs' retreat.

Confused fish-voices cried out their shock:_ "By the Tides! How did they get behind us so quickly? A trap!" _The party was thrown into scared disarray and was unable to follow Tepalsish's order to make a formation and break past the two lovers to reach the water's safety. The two orcs came in charging, and ran into a pile of disorganized fish-out-of-water, devastating them. The male's axe beheaded the irresponsible huntsman immediately, and a large club carried by the female pounded Eta'cha's dark shape.  Kalas froze with sudden terror; the fighting had begun.  The other twelve Murlocs massed the two orcs, marring their green legs with many knife-cuts, trying to overwhelm them. Kalas ran to do the same, striking the male's shin with the edge of his heavy shell-shield. But, the orcs were too strong. They swung their heavy, barbaric weapons and knocked away enemies right and left. Another Murloc died, Slekrix, a veteran Tiderunner beginning to weaken with age. Tepalsish himself was bleeding.

In the hopeless pandemonium, Kalas felt sure they would never break though and reach the waters before the other Orcs and Trolls arrived to kill them. There was no way these two snarling green giants would be moved from their way in only a few seconds—it was simply impossible.  *_I am going to die now.*_

It was in that instant, when the little fish-creature had been pushed to the utmost fear—the true certainty of death—that a very curious thing happened.  The crippling cold chill that gripped Kalas faded.  The buzzing panic in his head vanished his kind was clean.  He watched the battle with pure clarity.  *_I will die,* _he thought again.  He stopped trembling and was still, standing to the side of a snarling massacre.

Kalas went into shock, and as he stood in a waking coma his mind, almost detached now from his lower feelings and instincts, considered death, as his unmoving frame physically surrendered to wait for it.  He felt almost relieved.  _*At least now, I know.  I don't have to wonder if I'll be hurt or killed, or fail—my future is revealed.  I will be cleaved, and cast into the bog to rot until my whitening skin is devoured from me by the creatures in the mud.*_  The terror of the known, it has always been true, pales in comparison to that of the unknown.  Kalas's fear of death left him for all time in that instant.  Then, in the dragging eon of half a second, the energy seemed to return to his body.  He was standing here at the end of his life, free at last.  Absent of fear, he could feel his grief, and pain.  The fight seemed to move in slow motion as the Orcs beat his comrades back one heavy blow at a time.  *_I won't get to experience the triumphant return of a successful hunter, I will not mate and breed, I will never feel the wisdom of age.  So, what_,* he thought, as the male Orc's axe seemed to float through the air, *_do I do now_?*  Kalas looked at his fate in the eyes of the still-gasping face of the Huntsman.  He was _still alive._ The dying fish-creature's horror and pain must have been overwhelming.  Most slain Murlocs died that way.  Kalas saw himself in those glazed tearless eyes, heard his own airless screams of pain.  _ * Do I give up and wait? For that?   No… I remember Slekrix told me…*_

_"Do not be killed easily!"_ The doomed little creature moved again, violently.  He threw his knife at the Orc male's face, making him flinch back. Kalas drew a bamboo spear from his back and ran at the monster, driving the stake into his stomach. He was a cornered animal now, fighting out his last moments to punish his killer.  The massive musculature would not give, he could not stab through to vitals and wound the Orc—but he seemed to be hurting it. Little did he realize, the Orc was more stunned than hurt.  Could one of these cowering aberrations suddenly be taking the offensive, and hurting him?  Never!

Seeing her lover pushed back, the enraged female knocked another Tiderunner aside and came straight at Kalas, roaring a terrible dry land-beast sound. Her cudgel came down like a storm wave crashing, and he barely had time to raise his shield. The shell broke apart under the impact, dissipating the force and saving his arm. He put both hands on his spear to fight this terrible thing to his end. He would have almost willingly been hacked to death, if Eta'cha had not saved him. She scraped her poisoned Nightcrawler blade across the female's leg, and the Orc stumbled in pain.

_"KALAS, RUN!" _screamed Eta'cha, sounding almost like a land creature herself. He ran—and he escaped. The Murlocs fled for the delta, scrambling for their lives.  

Behind him, Kalas could see the male Orc struggling to tear his way out of a net—one of the huntsmen had had the presence of mind to abandon one of the pigs and ensnare him with the net as he pulled Kalas's spear from his belly. Around the Orcs were the bodies of two dead Murlocs, and one severed arm, Tiderunner yellow. A rather shell-shocked looking pig stumbled in a daze, cracking the bits of Kalas's shield under its hooves. The Orcish reinforcements ran past the defeated pair, seconds too late. That scene burned itself into Kalas's mind forever. He had been so sure he would die…

Then, with the splash of swamp water they were safe again, fleeing through the channels with their booty. Troll spears flew through the undergrowth, all harmlessly missing. The Trolls were attacking randomly, out of anger, a hopeless waste of spear wood. Soon the Murlocs were out to sea, dragging the three drowned pigs under the saltwater. Kalas, now emptied of adrenaline, felt its sting on his arm; he was wounded. He looked down and pulled away a fragment of his shell shield that had embedded in his flesh.  It would be a battle scar—his first of many. *_A scar.  Is that really all?*_

Eta'cha swam beside him. _"You are mighty, Kalas," _she said. _" Tiderunner, you earn the title well.  You turned the tide, and because of you we are alive.  I wish we could have you for a Nightcrawler!  A bit too late to change the caste you'll be bred into, though. Tepalsish is going to give you praise before all the village at the feast that these pigs will provide, after we have honored the two dead. He's going to present you with the pigs _hearts_, Kalas. That's a huge award."_

_"I am…" _ This, he couldn't answer.  He felt so… *_Honored.*_  Ceremonial initiation as a Tiderunner was an honor, they were all told, and what he felt now—this feeling of accomplishment, and power, and goodwill from his fellow raiders—taught him what the meaning of that word was supposed to have been. He would be commended and honored before all the people of the reef: he who, on his first raid, turned the tide of battle against the two great Orcs and won them all an escape from certain death. Ignoring the aches and pains of battle, and the blood flowing from his arm, he swam a little faster, his eyes shining brightly ahead into the sea.


End file.
